


A Flower

by JTR01



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:01:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25534774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JTR01/pseuds/JTR01
Summary: Puzzled by his friend's happiness, Koschei asks Theta what happened and his friend answers by showing him a flower.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 1





	A Flower

**Author's Note:**

> This one shot was done for a prompt on a Doctor Who forum. This relates the story the Doctor told Jo in The Time Monster.

Koschei always knew that Theta was different from him, but he never understood what the difference was until he showed him the flower. It had been a normal day until he returned to his room after discussing the lesson with Ushas and Magnus to find Theta pacing around the room in excitement. A far cry from the moody attitude he's had for the last month, and when he had asked what had changed Theta had simply shows him a single flower.

It was a sarlain which was fairly common in the mountains close to where Theta had lived with his family, which he only knew due to his uncle's hobby of collecting flowers. It had bright yellow petals which were somewhat pretty to look at, but beyond that he failed to see it's significance. When Theta saw the puzzled look on Koschei’s face he started talking about the hermit he went to see and who showed him the flower, and since then all he's seen was how beautiful everything was.

"Why did he show you a flower?" Koschei asked, his confusion on how it was significant remaining.

"I told him about my problems, and he showed me the flower because he knew it would help." Theta explained with a grin, clearly not hearing how insane he sounded.

"A flower helped you? Why?" Koschei questioned slowly as he wondered if his friend really was losing his mind.

"Because it helped me see how beautiful the world was and that there's no need to be sad when there's more reasons to be happy." Theta answered as he looked at Koschie happily p, his eyes revealing that he expected Koschie to understand.

"Well, that's an...interesting idea I suppose." Koschei told his friend, pausing before speaking again. "But to me it's just a flower."

In the many centuries to come Koschei will see many expressions on the face of his oldest friend. He will see great sorrow when he took the life of an innocent, fury over Koschei's lack of care about the lives he has taken or ruined, and depressed acceptance that this is what Koschei was always meant to be. But the expression Theta had when he realised that Koschei didn't see the same thing as him when he looked at the flower was the one he always remembered in perfect detail. He had tried to hide it, said that he was just being stupid, but Koscei could always tell when Theta was lying. He knew what he was feeling because it was the same thing Koschei felt. The sudden realisation that for the first time, there was something they couldn't understand about each other and made them different. This wasn't a case of them liking different types of food, this was something which highlighted how differently they saw the world. At first Koschei had told himself that the difference was that Theta was more childish than him and therefore saw everything with a child's excitement, but he knew that was a lie. The truth was that Theta saw the world and believed that everything was special, while Koschei only saw whatever made him happy and he could benefit from.

As time passes and their relationship evolved, from just friends to romantic territory before eventually settling on enemies, Koschei never forgot the day Theta showed him the flower. And after every regeneration, or every time he had stolen a new body, he would find a flower that resembled a sarlain as closely as possible. He would stare at it intently, wondering if this was the the life he would finally understand what Theta had been so excited about. But no matter what he would only see what he had seen the first time and he would go back to killing people like he always did.

It would be many lifetimes since leaving Gallifrey before he would see a sarlain again, and it would only be after finding the truth about his friend from the matrix. He would walk out to the hills, sit own and stared intently at the flower for hours. Waiting to see what Theta had seen, hoping to see it so he might not do what he wanted to do. He will have wiped out many species before by that point but it would be different now that he was thinking about doing it to his own people. Which is why he had to see what Theta had seen that die he had spoken to the hermit, but like every time before he will only see a flower. So he will then get up and walk away, purposely crushing the flower under his shoe as his brain figured out how to kill his people.

**Author's Note:**

> Tell me what you think and if there are any spelling mistakes or sentences that don't make sense.


End file.
